One
I was born and raised in a poor village.
Two
The childhood was hard, and it was happy.
Three
What raised me was the river, the streams, and rice fields that ran to the horizon.
Four
I still remember herding the cows — lying back on the paddy bank, watching a clear blue sky,
letting my mind drift with the wind while they grazed, unhurried.
Five
Hardship tempered me.
Six
It left a drive to rise, and a will that does not bow to circumstance.
Seven
Physics,
Eight
then mathematics,
then computer science —
each one became something I could not put down.
Nine
After all of that there is a happy family now: my wife, and our two children.
Ten
I am still working every day at being better than I was, and at giving something back.
I have always felt lucky — not for where I ended up, but for having had the chance to try at all.
Ho Chi Minh City · UTC+7
English fluent · Vietnamese native
Hi, I am Dong.
Ten years in, the through-line has not moved: systems other people depend on, and usually both ends of them. The screen someone sits in all day, and the billing underneath it where a rounding error is somebody's actual money. It makes the arguments easy — you can always ask what happens if this is wrong at three in the morning.
The half that surprises people is that I care just as much about how it looks. Design tokens, Storybook, an afternoon lost to a focus state. If something is going to be used every day, it ought to be pleasant.
I work remotely, I answer email quickly, and I am always up for a conversation about queues.
dong.ng.tan@gmail.comPlanet and star maps by Solar System Scope, used under CC BY 4.0. Orbital elements from the NASA planetary fact sheet.
The cattle are “Cow Havest moon” by Smoon, used under CC BY 4.0.